Model Minority Myth

But we must look deeper past the numbers and statistics and into the cultural aspects and the effects and consequences of the myth of the model minority has.

Asian children are increasingly pressured by family and cultural values to achieve. The parents of these students feel that the performance of their children is a representation of their parental abilities and when their children fall short of their expectations, these feelings are sometimes expressed in form of physical violence for something such as not getting a 4.0 GPA. Parents have such an overwhelming need to see their children succeed that sometime they pick their kid's courses, what school to go to and what courses to take in college (reference). However, the parents are willing
to sacrifice their financial well-being and lifestyle for their children. A Chicago study doing in the 1980s revealed that 8/10 Asian parents would sell their house and financial security to support their children's education while only 3/10 White parents said they would.

With the extent of the parental pressure and cultural values, Asian students feel an obligation to do nothing less than perfection.
A study done by (find reference) discovered that Asian students, on average, spent more time studying, reviewing, and doing HW then any other social group. However, when these students do not achieve the level of performance that they desire, these pressures bare down on them. One student, Sally Woo that I know of tried to commit suicide because she could not make into a school that she wanted to go into.

This is the legacy of the myth of the "model minority". The idea that hard work coupled with endless diligence and with no outside help can lead to success. This push students and families alike to live up to unrealistic and hazardous expectations.

Another legacy of the "model minority" is connected to the story of Sally. Due to the vast number of Asian students that attend and receive higher education, university have seen Asian students have overpopulated and taken over higher education institutions. In 1983, the Asian American Students Association at Brown University found lower enrollment rates although there were higher number of qualified Asian applicants. One year later, in 1984, Professor Ling-chi Wang staged a hunger strike to protest the 21% drop in admission at UC Berkley.
(reference)

Some of the excuses that university and higher education institutions give are:
1) They reserve spaces for the children of alumni's because they need their financial support
2) They need to have a "fair" representation of the surrounding community.
3) SARS!!!

Although with this covert discrimination in universities, Asian students are still able to graduate and 42.4% have college degrees.
However, after college, according to (reference) they still suffer discrimination regardless of their academic performance. The academic image of hardworking, achievement oriented, and eager to learn disappear when they move to the working world as they stereotyped as passive, unassertive, lacking leadership abilities, not sociable, and being too technical. Some move to other countries to achieve positions that they cannot in the United States. According to Business Week (1994), 100 of AT&T Bell Laboratories researchers returned to Taiwan for high esteem positions, one of these researchers being Yuan Lee, a Nobel Prize
Chemist.

Those that do stay are subject to the statistics as the ones by the Census Bureau. Although they have higher education, they suffer higher unemployment rates and the median family income becomes a distorted fact. According to Asian-nation.com, it is not unusual to have 4-5 family members working at the same time. Usually, these family members work in family business that offer little pay and often no pay at all. Compared to White families were there are primarily two wage earners, the per capita earnings, meaning adjusted for number of wage earners, Asians earn only $18,709 and Whites move up to $21,394. Asian Americans sometimes also work longer hours. According to (reference), Korean American, for example, works average of 17-18 hrs in small self-employed businesses.

Looking back at the statistics again, you will notice that the picture is not as simple as it looks. The model minority propagates pressures and stress on Asian students and families to fulfill the Model Minority image. And even after fulfillment of that image, Asian Americans discover that they suffer discriminate in the workplace.

So what does this mean for the Asian Americans and other social groups?
Asian Americans suffer the consequence of a myth represent hardworking and needing no assistance as "model" traits for Asian Americans and other social groups. Asian Americans still suffer the systematic discrimination although it has migrated from overt manner in the historical perspective to more of a subtle form of discrimination.

But this myth not only effect Asian Americans but other social groups. Asian Americans are pitted against other social groups such as Mexicans, Blacks, and other groups. These groups sometimes feel disdain toward Asian Americans because they are compared socially and economically to Asian Americans, and they feel the same pressure that Asian Americans feel to achieve and succeed, and sometimes these feeling of frustration displace themselves in acts of violence. The myth is used to cut benefits like welfare, Medicare, and other form of aids for all minorities. These elements are the lasting legacy of the myth of the "Model Minority".